


Like You Used to Do

by hayleyisbored



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Canon Divergence, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fix-It, Fluff, Humour, M/M, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 20:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20880041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hayleyisbored/pseuds/hayleyisbored
Summary: He'd carved his soul out onto that Kissing Bridge in Derry.





	Like You Used to Do

Richie Tozier is scrambling around his kitchen, trying to sound busy to any listening ears. He can't cook for shit, his life is built upon restaurants and takeout containers and the heavy reliance on his handful of friends, but the kitchen is the safest place for him to hide while he's on the phone.

He peers around the door of the kitchen and into the living room, watching Eddie - _Eddie_, his heart still gives out at the sight even now - stretch out on the sofa. His feet dangle off the end, clad in slippers because god forbid his bare feet touch Richie's hideously dirty floor. Richie is so charmed at the sight of Eddie thoroughly wiping the rim of the coffee cup which Richie had set down for him only moments earlier that he misses Mike's question.

"Sorry, what was that?" he asks, cradling the phone closer to his ear.

Mike sounds amused but not surprised, "Let me guess, you're hiding from Eddie under your bed?"

"Mike, I'm offended you'd even suggest that." Richie says in mock outrage. "For your information, I'm hiding in the kitchen. It's got beer and pretzels. You should be grateful, I'm doing you a huge favour here."

"Not one I asked for," Mike reminds him. His tone is placid, soothing, you can hear the fondness in there. If it were anyone else, Richie would be fighting the urge to throw up. "Anyway, how _is_ Eddie doing? Injury causing him any trouble?"

"I wish," Richie says in an undertone, only half joking. "He's as whiny as ever. You should hear him complain about my bathroom, I think he's one more week away from regrouting the tiles himself."

Mike chokes like he's in the middle of taking a drink, his voice growing fainter when he leans away from the phone to laugh, "That's Eddie, alright. He'll be good as new in no time, huh?"

"Sure. In no time."

"I better go, I promised Bev I'd call her and Ben before it gets late. Hey, I miss you guys, you know? We should meet up soon."

"Yeah, we'd like that. Oh, and tell the happy couple that I'm still waiting on that wedding invite!" 

"They're not even engaged yet, Rich."

"I know that but why take it slow? After the fucking hell we've been through, full speed ahead, I say."

"I'll pass on the message. Love to you both."

Mike always ends his phone calls with love, as if afraid that it will be his last chance to say it. Richie knows the feeling; he wakes up every morning and recites the names of the Losers' Club just to make sure he remembers them still. Richie has never been one for sentimentality but he concedes to it every time wherever his best friends are concerned. 

"Back at ya, Mikey." and then, because that doesn't feel sincere enough, "Love you too." 

Eddie hears the farewell and lifts his head, owlish eyes peering over the top of the sofa. Richie braces himself for the dressing down he's about to get as he hangs up.

"Was that Mike? What'd he say? Is he okay? Why didn't you tell me Mike was calling today?" 

Richie slips his cellphone into his jean pocket, "I thought a rest would be nice."

"I can pick up a phone, Richie. I know I've got a giant gaping wound in my chest but I can still lift my arms - see?" he raises his hands to the air, fingers wiggling in absurd demonstration. Richie lets him do it a little longer for the fun of it.

"I meant rest for Mike. God knows he needs a break from you chewing his ear off about all the risks he could run into while he's travelling. He sends his love though." Richie tells Eddie as he comes into the room properly. "Oh, he also said I was his favourite and that the rest of you are just pity friendships on account of you all being such a bunch of fucking losers."

"Fuck you," Eddie says with no real malice, shifting his legs when Richie shoves at him to move up. "As if he'd pick you over Bill anyway."

"Bill has his qualities but there's only one of me."

"Uh, trust me. One is enough."

Eddie has spread back out, taking up two thirds of the sofa by himself like its his home and not Richie's, and Richie lets him because he always has. He's not about to start breaking old habits now.

After they'd killed It, they'd stumbled out of the lair with Eddie slumped between them, each taking a handful of whatever they could grab onto even as rock tumbled into their path: an arm, a leg, his waist and, in Richie's case, Eddie's hand. Richie had held onto that hand like it was a lifeline, like _he_ was the only thing tethering Eddie to this earth and he'd be damned if he was going to let go. They only managed to pry Eddie from his grip when they hauled him into the hospital and onto a gurney, bewildered but game doctors wheeling Eddie away behind doors so that Richie couldn't follow. 

They'd done a remarkable job putting him back together again, a regular old Humpty Dumpty, and Eddie entered his recovery with every bit of his special brand of infuriating stubbornness intact. 

"_Fuck if you think I'm gonna let that clown kill me._" he'd said as he chowed down on chocolate pudding like he'd never eaten it before, surrounded by get well cards and the surviving five of his six friends.

That had been two and a half months ago. Eddie had been out of the hospital only two weeks and Richie had somehow found himself up a new roomie. 

"_I can't go back to Myra,_" he'd muttered begrudgingly to Richie one night, when Bev had gone to find a decent hot drink and Bill was snoring in his bedside chair. Eddie had stared at Richie with shining dark eyes in a moment of unencumbered honesty. "_I just can't, Richie._"

And who the fuck was Richie to disappoint that face? He'd been hopelessly powerless to it. He'd offered a room in his apartment then and there without even thinking it over, they'd bid goodbye to the other Losers and flown out to L.A. together. All Eddie owned were the clothes he'd brought to Derry and a few Hawaiian shirts Richie had let him borrow, much to his chagrin. They figured they could hammer out the rest of the details - job, personal belongings, divorcing Myra - in the near future.

Richie peeks over at Eddie now, burrowing down into the cushions. It feels how it used to back when they were kids, back before Pennywise started his killing spree. They would rent a shitty horror movie, rewind the VCR again and again, flicking stale popcorn at each other while Richie diligently ignored the press of their arms and legs as they crowded together on the crappy old recliner he kept in his room. They'd watch the movie until their eyes turned sore, till the sun started snaking through the curtains and Eddie had to dash off before his mom noticed he'd been gone all night and grounded him for eternity.

God, how had he let himself forget that?

"Oh, puh-lease. You can't get enough of me."

Eddie snorts, nodding vigorously. "Sure, sure. Hey Richie, the 90s called, they said they want their clothes back."

Richie glances down at his outfit - vintage Nirvana tee over a long sleeved brown shirt, decidedly straight legged jeans because Richie would sooner resurrect Pennywise than wear anything described 'skinny fit' - and flips Eddie off enthusiastically.

"Hahaha! Cute. That's cute, Kaspbrak!" he crows, heavy on the sarcasm. "Hey Eddie, the 90s called, they want their shitty joke back. Oh, and wait! There's a fax coming through - it says go fuck yourself."

"You'd know all about stale, outdated jokes."

"Well this stale, outdated joke is on you, pal. I haven't written my own material in yeeears."

"That was kinda my point, you dick."

Odd how comforting this familiar back and forth is. They can say the meanest things but they both know it's mindless, a messed up competition they started years ago and were able to pick up so easily, it's as if they never stopped. The others hadn't the heart or the knack for it; they'd grimace at Richie's depravity, they'd jostle his shoulder and tell him to zip it - _beep beep, Richie. I said beep beep._ \- and Stan had even walked away a few times because he couldn't stand to listen to it anymore. 

Not Eddie though. Eddie stepped up to the plate like it was a personal challenge, one he intended to win and Richie, defenseless in the face of puberty and his newly awakened _feelings_, had never stood a chance in hell after that.

"Fuck, man, are you actually beating me at this now? Am I getting old?"

"Old? That ship sailed years ago, Richard. You're fucking ancient."

"We're like, the _same_ age, dude."

"I'm not falling to pieces because of it though." Eddie states, grinning around the stitches in his cheek. "You're only as old as you feel."

"You must feel like, at least a hundred then because I swear to god you were born a sixty year old man. I can't believe you used to carry two fanny packs around or am I misremembering that?"

"I was being cautious!" Eddie scowls but the expression eases up, turns distant like his mind has gone somewhere else. "You know, I used to think that I wasn't cool enough for you? I was scared shitless over everything and you - you weren't. You seemed to know exactly who you were."

"Eddie," Richie says, sitting up straight suddenly, dumbfounded. "What the actual _fuck_ are you talking about?!"

Eddie's eyes grow large, wide as dinner plates, panicked by the heat of the question.

"I - I - when we were kids? I thought - "

"That's not what I mean." Richie tells him, shaking his head. He can't stop; everything Eddie is saying is so stupid that he can't believe the words are coming out of his mouth. "I was a loser. We were both Losers - with a capital L! Being the bottom dwellers on the food chain was kind of our collective thing."

"I know that, Richie."

"You're not grasping what I'm trying to tell you here, shithead." Richie needs to make sure this gets through his best friend's thick skull. Regaining traumatic memories of nearly getting murdered by a killer clown and then going through the ordeal again really puts things into perspective. "Eduardo. Eds. Eddie. Baby, I thought _you_ were the bees fuckin' knees. I was crushing on you so hard I carved our initials onto the bridge! I was running around town like I was in some John Hughes motherfucking shit and not the god damn John Carpenter nightmare we were living!"

Eddie's frozen, limbs locked like he's back in that awful Neibolt house and he's helplessly watching Richie fend off their dead friend's decapitated head again. Bambi caught in petrifying bright deadlights.

"Eddie?"

He doesn't move, there's not even any sign of a nervous tremble. Richie leans forward, clasping his hands on Eddie's shoulders. _Jesus Christ_, he thinks when he feels a thrill at the chance to touch his friend, _all I'm doing is holding onto his freaking bony shoulders._

"Eds, are you okay? Say something. Give me anything, bud."

"Shut up."

"What?"

Eddie's surprise splinters to give way to a frown, "Don't call me Eds. You know I hate it."

"I know," Richie says, mostly out of relief that Eddie is talking. "That's why I say it, fucker."

"You liked me? You liked me that whole time?" Eddie finally says, frantic and desperate, that little line of worry he's had since he was a kid creasing the space between his brows. Richie used to joke about it sticking that way; he wishes to god he could smooth it out with a thumb, with a kiss. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Are you kidding? I had Bowers circling me like a fucking vulture! I was locked up inside my own internalised homophobia, dipshit. If I'd bared my love-struck heart to you and you said you wanted nothing to do with me, I'd have lost my tiny teenage mind. I'd have thrown myself into Pennywise's god damn jaws of death. I'd have stood in the street screaming, '_oh Pennywise, take me down to your spooky murder lair!_'"

"Don't. Don't say that," Eddie flinches, visibly hurt like Richie has struck him with the back of his hand. "I wouldn't have - none of us would have said that. We love you, Rich." 

"Yeah, well." Richie says with a shrug. A little too late and all of that, story of his fucking life. "The point is you know now."

"And now?"

"Whaddya mean, _and now_?"

"What about now? Do you still - ?"

"Oh,"

Not what Richie bargained for. This isn't even a question he'd been prepared to hear, which is really fucking dense of him in hindsight. You can't just declare a childhood crush on your best friend and not expect to be asked if feelings forged in those tender formative years are still lingering somewhere deep inside.

Because, oh boy, are they lingering. No - more than lingering. They're wrecking Richie from the inside out. It's like he's been slam dunked back into his teenage body, rife with so much overzealous attraction that he doesn't have a clue where to put it all. Those feelings are tearing him up, turning his heart into confetti every time he so much as _looks_ at Eddie. Seeing him alive. _Whole_. Well - almost.

When Richie had walked into the restaurant a couple of months ago, he'd been filled with some anticipation he couldn't put his finger on - obvious vomit-inducing terror over Pennywise aside - and it had only clicked into place when he locked eyes onto Eddie's twitchy face for the first time in twenty-seven years.

There was Eddie looking exactly the same as he had when they'd last seen each other, taller for sure but still unequivocally _Eddie_, and Richie had felt his stomach drop out of his ass just as the words '_oh fuck_' flashed through his brain like a warning klaxon.

"Look, I'm gonna try to be straight with you, buddy, even though that's something I'm definitely _not_ in just about every way you can think of." Richie says, relinquishing his hold on Eddie's shoulders so that he can stuff his hands under his armpits instead. "Although it's kind of fucking twisted that I'm only able to say this after seeing you skewered on some murder clown's death spikes and being splattered in your blood."

"Say what?"

"Eddie, I love you. I'm _in_ love with you, man. I have been for as long as I can remember - maybe even as long as I couldn't, too. We forgot everything because we left, right? I left Derry filled to the brim with love for you. Like, it was gushing out of every orifice - "

"Sure, I get it." Eddie cuts in, mildly disgusted at the mention of _anything_ gushing out of Richie's orifices. 

"My point is, something like that can't be totally erased. For twenty-seven years, I've had - it was like an absence in me. It was some void I never really understood and it only went away when I saw you again. After that, I just - I knew. It was you. It was you, motherfucker. When we weren't together, I felt emptied out." Richie can't even fully describe it, the sense of being incomplete without even realising it. He hadn't felt like a whole person in such a long time. "Sure, the same goes for the other Losers too but I wasn't head over heels for Bill, was I?"

"Richie, I - "

"Nah, nope. You don't have to give me the spiel, I get it. I never thought you liked me the way I liked you. It's fine," Richie speaks the lie like a joke he's only rehearsed once. It's utterly unconvincing, so deeply uncompelling that Eddie is giving Richie one of his rare pitying looks. "Totally cool here. I'm just super happy you're still kicking, man, really. I thought that was it, back in the sewer, I thought that you were gonna - you were gonna - "

_Oh god_, Richie thinks despairingly when he finds he can't get any more words out, _am I fucking _ crying _ right now_?!

Because if he'd ever wanted to lay down and let Pennywise just take him, it was the moment he saw Eddie stabbed through the chest and hauled up and away from him, spilling blood all over Richie's outstretched arms, over his face. Rust in his mouth. The grim necessity that had kept him going up until that point - because Bill had demanded it, because Mike pleaded with them to stay, because they'd made a _promise_ \- was overridden by the truest fear he'd ever felt brought on by the sight of Eddie being flung to the side like a ragdoll. Anger came later, enabled him to deliver the last of the killing blows alongside the rest of the Losers' Club while Eddie gurgled his own blood and fought to stay conscious.

He had really thought Eddie was going to die down there.

"Whoa, hey - " Eddie looks shocked at the tears on Richie's face, holding his hands up like he wants to do something with them but he's not sure what.

Richie is choking down sobs, blinking hard and fast like that'll miraculously make it stop. Eddie's mouth is moving furiously, saying all manner of fuck knows what, but Richie is cackling over him like a maniac, trying to convince Eddie that everything is good and dandy. 

"Rich - "

"I'm totally fine!" he insists when Eddie is starting to look as if he's contemplating calling someone for help. "We're both fine! Sure, you're a little fragile right now and your face got carved up like a jack-o'-lantern but you're fine!" 

"Richie, I hear you, okay? Everything _is_ fine but if you keep saying that, I'm gonna staple your mouth shut because I swear to god, you're giving me a goddamn heart attack and that's the last thing I need. Just - just listen to me for a minute, okay?"

Richie works on pulling himself together for long enough so that Eddie can get a word in. He sniffs wetly, the sound of it gross enough to make Eddie turn pale, swiping fingers against the tears beneath his glasses.

"What?"

"I'm trying to tell you that I like you! I like you, you - you fucking _fuck_!" Eddie is gesturing at himself, arms flailing as if they're in the middle of a game of charades. "I _like you back_!"

The world around Richie slows down, it starts tilting like he's about to collapse over. Maybe he looks as if he's ready to faint because suddenly, Eddie's hands are clutching at his forearms, steadying him.

"Are you being fucking serious?! I thought I was supposed to be the comedian here?" Richie demands. Then, more softly, quietly hopeful to the point where his chest physically aches because Eddie wouldn't lie about _this_, would he? "Are you - are you yanking my chain right now?"

"Yanking your..." Eddie mouths blankly, face scrunching like Richie has just told him to stick his hand in a toilet. He lets go of Richie like he's on fire. "Of course I'm not! Why the fuck would I make this shit up? Why would anyone pretend to like an unsanitary asshole like you unless they really mean it?! I've seen what you don't do after you've pissed and it's disgusting, by the way. There's soap by the sink for a _reason_. Oh, and you know what else I've noticed? What about when you - " 

_There he is_, Richie thinks proudly but he's smiling even as Eddie curses out every bad habit he's ever indulged in over the past two weeks of living together. _Eddie likes him_. Richie doesn't care about the when or why or how - at least not yet. Eddie, Eddie freaking Spaghetti, _Edward Kaspbrak_ likes him back.

" - because if you keep doing that, then I'm going to have to start laying out some ground rules because I'd rather set fire to everything I own than let you touch anything with your germ infested - what. What? Why are you smiling at me like that? I'm insulting you, Trashmouth. I'm telling you how much of a revolting person you are. You're not supposed to be smiling!"

"Nothing. It's just you sure know how to make a guy feel special, Eds."

Eddie rolls his eyes, a move he's retained from memory, from back when he had years of practice in dealing with Richie. "Oh my god, just shut the fuck up." and then he's shifting, struggling to sit up like he's trying to leave.

"Wait - stop." Richie laughs lightly, lunging forward to wrap his fingers over Eddie's. Eddie goes still, stares down at their hands with mild astonishment, unnaturally solemn. "Stop. I'm sorry. You were being brave just then, telling me that. You're way braver than you think you are."

"Yeah, well. Look where being brave has gotten me." Eddie mumbles, squirming in his seat. "Hole-punched in the chest." 

Richie lets his gaze fall to Eddie's torso, to where he knows Eddie is bound in bandages and probably more gauze than he really needs. He presses his palm against the cotton of Eddie's t shirt, feels an erratic heartbeat thumping under the bulky dressings. Skittishness has always been in Eddie's nature and he looks to be waging an internal war over it now.

"It got you here." Richie reminds him gently, sliding his hand up to meet the edge of Eddie's jaw. Rough stubble grazes his fingertips, the pad of his thumb. "Don't get me wrong, it fucking sucks that you got stuck through like a human pin cushion but you _saved_ me from the deadlights and now you're here. With me. I'm really glad you're here, Eddie."

Eddie sounds breathless when he speaks, his voice hushed like they're nestled in the corner of a library, "You're not gonna start crying on me again, are you Tozier?"

"So _what_ if I fucking did, huh?" Richie says as he leans in, relieved that Eddie doesn't duck away but moves to meet him instead.

Richie kisses Eddie like he's been waiting a lifetime for it - because he has. He kisses him in the way he's imagined since he was a kid and then some. He's pictured this scenario a million fucking times in the privacy of his own head, torturing himself with a daydream and never daring to entertain that it could become his reality. 

He'd carved his soul out onto that Kissing Bridge in Derry, he'd left an imprint of his unspoken longing within the lines of their initials. Richie had forged his secret out in the open that day so that if or when he was gone, the proof of his love for Eddie would endure even the fear that Pennywise could inspire. It'd outlast them all.

Now, as each one of Eddie's hard edges become soft at Richie's touch, turning pliant at the press of Richie's mouth on his, it's more than Richie had ever allowed himself to hope for.

"You know, you didn't have to go and get butchered by a clown to get my attention, right?" Richie mutters against Eddie's lips, feeling feverish and giddy, not enough air in his lungs. "I've only loved you my whole fucking life."

Richie almost regrets the words when Eddie pulls away sharply, brows knotted together like he's in pain, a flash of some emotion passing over his features too quickly for Richie to gauge. That is, until the moment Eddie darts back in, kissing a rough and sloppy trail up Richie's neck, climbing half into his lap. Richie's head hits the back of the sofa as he expels a heavy sigh.

_I'm going to explode_, Richie thinks to himself, _I'm going to combust right here in my apartment if he doesn't stop doing that to my ear._

When Eddie moves away again without warning, Richie groans, puffs like the wind has been knocked out of him. 

"_Jesus_."

"Uh, Richie?"

Richie pulls his head up with herculean effort and every intention to glare at Eddie but stops short at the look on his face. That line of worry on his forehead is back, he's chewing on his bottom lip like it's a piece of gum. Richie flips to concern in record time.

"What's up?"

Eddie shrugs, sitting back to scratch at a loose thread on his knee, hair mussed from where Richie greedily tugged his fingers through the short strands. His face is flushed, cheeks practically beet red, he's glowing brighter than the sun. He doesn't look up to meet Richie's eyes. 

"I just - I love you too, okay? I want you to know that."

Richie is too taken aback to tease much so he says, "Of course you do."

"Fuck you." he says but it's affectionate, spoken around the shape of a shy smile.

"I wish you _would_."

Eddie huffs, shakes his head like he's been putting up with this shit for far too long but he reaches for Richie regardless, drawing him in close and Richie, as ever, goes willingly.

"Beep beep, Richard." Eddie murmurs, pressing his lips back to Richie's as he pulls them both down into the cushions, obliterating Richie into a thousand tiny glorious pieces for his trouble.

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been stuck on DEVASTATED BILL HADER AS RICHIE TOZIER _weeping_ over Eddie and I just? couldn't? leave it? like that? I have been PLAGUED by this image so I'm trying to wallpaper over it with fanfic.
> 
> Title song: [I'm Not Leaving by Keane.](https://open.spotify.com/track/7Ghf3xMHT75iJBbuerlCae) I've had the album this song is from on repeat and now I strongly associate it with Eddie and Richie, so there we are. It just works.


End file.
